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Long Island Medium execs focused on personality for the show

When Magilla Entertainment partners Brian Flanagan, Matthew Ostrom & Laura Palumbo Johnson were pitched a show about a woman who talks to dead people, it’s fair to say they had some reservations.

“I was (thinking) ‘What do you do with the paranormal?” Ostrum says.

But the appeal of Theresa Caputo, now the star of TLC’s “Long Island Medium,” is far more than just supernatural. It’s a key reason Magilla chose to focus the show on her down-to-earth, comic personality as much as her readings.

Cable channels taking pitch meetings with Caputo didn’t know what hit them. “She was like an executive assassin,” Ostrum recalls. “One said, ‘Make her stop. I can’t cry anymore.’?And is there anyone more cynical than a development exec at a network?”

How much of Caputo’s gift is as authentic as it appears on TV has been questioned, of course — and even the star can shake her head at times when considering her success.

Source: Variety

“And is there anyone more cynical than a development exec at a network?” Well, everyone can fall under the influence of an emotional psychic reading. Accurate or not, we project our feelings onto what we are told.

The interesting part of this story was the admission that network execs feel the paranormal has been “done”. So, they are looking for new ways of presenting it. They focus on the family aspects of this show. They note that other psychic shows have fizzled. (GOOD!)

I’m REALLY not a fan of these shows because ANY TV show skews the image of reality presented to the viewer. The audience may believe all that is shown is accurate but it’s not. It’s EDITED. That’s undeniable. And it’s also undeniable that mistakes are edited out. So, you can’t take this show at face value. Sure, it’s entertainment but, as we say around here… people really believe this stuff.